The 11th Annual Youth Arts Festival will be held on the mall at East Carolina University from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 28. In case of rain, the festival will be moved to the Leo W. Jenkins Fine Arts Building on 5th St. All activities are free and open to the public.

The festival will bring more than 150 visual and performing artists from ECU, North Carolina and surrounding states to share their talents with children. Children will have an opportunity to create their own artwork and visit with artists demonstrating activities such as wheel thrown ceramics, watercolor painting, weaving, blacksmithing, paper-making, printmaking, sculpture and portraiture.

Performing artists scheduled to appear this year include The Magic of African Rhythm, Paperhand Puppet Intervention, Cirque de Vol, Magic by Jazzy, the Steve Myott Puppets and Twisted Knot.

The Royal Society of Chemistry invited Huo to submit the review article of work done by his mentor, Nobel Prize winner Ei-ichi Negishi of Purdue University. The work was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Organic Chemistry Frontiers.

Jenny K. Hager, visiting artist in sculpture, will present a lecture in Room 133 in Jenkins Fine Arts Center at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 5 as part of the opening of the Down East Sculpture Exhibition in Greenville.

Hager

Hager, a juror for the Down East Sculpture Exhibition, is an associate professor of sculpture at the University of North Florida. She received her MFA in Sculpture and Digital Media from San Jose State University in San Jose, California.

Hager’s interest involves a variety of processes and materials. She finds inspiration in dreams, objects from her childhood, gadgets, sea life and other curiosities. She also values collaboration, and believes the spirit of community is important in her teaching practice and her own work. Hager’s work has been exhibited most recently at the Ogden Museum of Art in New Orleans, Los Angeles, the Josephine Sculpture Park in Frankfort, Kentucky and in the Cymru Ironstone Castle in Wales.

Hager also will visit ECU studios and hold critiques and workshops with students through March 7.

Hager’s visit is made possible by the Office of Student Activities & Organizations and the ECU Sculpture Guild.

The 2015 celebration of International Women’s Day will be held Wednesday, March 4 in the Mendenhall Student Center, Great Rooms 1 & 2. The day features a series of speakers on the following topics:

8-8:50 a.m. International Perspectives on Women’s Status
A discussion between representatives from the University of Gdansk, Poland; Fatima Jinnah Women’s University, Pakistan; and Covenant University, Nigeria.

9-9:50 a.m. Women in the Media
Beth Mendelson has more than 25 years experience in media and is currently executive producer at Voice of America. Her portfolio includes broadcast, radio and the web. Mendelson was Winner of the 2006 Women of Vision Award by Women in Film & Video.

10-10:50 a.m. Women in Religion
Ann Harrington was recently ordained as a priest by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, a renewal movement within the Roman Catholic Church whose goal is to achieve full equality for all within the church as a matter of justice and faithfulness to the gospel.

11-11:50 a.m. Women in Social Justice
Shirrell Thomas has more than 40 years experience working on domestic violence. She leads the social enterprise section of the Center for Family Violence Prevention. Her initiative of My Sister’s Closet plays a major role in aiding victims of domestic violence in our community.

Noon-12:15 p.m. Is There Still Bias Against Women?
Brody School of Medicine professor Rachel Roper shares the latest studies on this subject.

12:15-12:30 p.m. ECU Chapter of She’s the First
ECU student and chapter president Keerthana Velappan shares information about this organization, which sponsors girls’ education in low-income countries, giving them the chance to become the first in their families to graduate from secondary school.

2-2:50 p.m. Women in Romance
Laurie Kahn is a resident scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center. Her film “Tupperware!” was broadcast in more than 20 countries, won the George Foster Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy. Kahn is executive producer of The Popular Romance Project, which explores the origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, songs and Internet fan fiction.

3-3:50 p.m. Women in Health Care
Dr. Janice Daugherty, assistant professor of Family Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine. Her interests include women’s health through the lifespan, integrative mental health care, nutrition and wellness and chronic disease mitigation.

International Women’s Day is sponsored by the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women, the Office of the Provost, the Office of Student Affairs and ECU Women’s Studies.

Individuals requesting accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) should contact the Department for Disability Support Services at least 48 hours prior to the event at (252) 737-1016 (Voice/TTY).

A recent gift to the ECU Foundation by James L. “Jim” Ratledge ’51 of Roswell, Georgia, came with a note that shines light on an era when the Dail House–the official residence of East Carolina presidents and chancellors for six decades—was actually known as the Young House.

Ratledge’s $10,000 gift to the foundation honors an aunt and uncle—the late Anne and Willoughby F. “Red” Young. A prominent Greenville family, the Youngs owned what we call the Dail House for 10 years.

When he graduated high school in 1947, Ratledge’s parents enrolled him in ECTC and shipped him off to live with his aunt and uncle in Greenville. As a small town boy from the western part of the state, moving into the mansion on Fifth Street was a cultural shock.

“I remember walking into their house for the first time, and I was just awed at how big it was, and how tastefully decorated it was,” says Ratledge. “They were such nice people, always helping somebody. They took me in and gave me a home and really made college possible for me. Looking back on it now, it was their help and loving support that put me on the right track in college.”

Ratledge lived with the Youngs and their two children for two years. In 1949 the Youngs sold their home to East Carolina and moved to Durham to be close to their daughter, Bettie Ann Young Doebler, after she enrolled at Duke University. She is now is a professor emeritus at Arizona State University.

“When I was a teenager,” Doebler recalls, “sometimes six or eight of us would take our sheets outside (and sleep on) the roof over the sun room–there was no air conditioning in those days. In (the living room) was a baby grand piano that my grandmother gave me, and I often played hymns and sang for the family.”

The Youngs’ other child, William Foster “Billy” Young ’66 came back to Greenville for college, and then settled in Charlotte.

The Youngs were generous to others in their extended family. When Mary Anne Howard ’73 of Raleigh, a niece of the Youngs, was in high school in Greenville, her mother died. The Youngs took her in, just as they had done for Ratledge.

About a dozen years ago Ratledge was back on campus for an event and asked about seeing the home where he lived for two years.

“The chancellor was Dick Eakin then, and when I called him he said come right on over, and he gave me a tour of the place. And it looked exactly like it did in 1947 when I first walked through the door.”

The Chancellor’s Residence was built in 1921 by William Haywood Dail Jr. He owned a brick-making company in Greenville that supplied the brick for the original six buildings on campus. It’s because of his role in East Carolina’s early years that the home bears his name.

A complete history of the Dail House was written by Gladys Howell in 1987 upon the retirement of her husband, Chancellor John Howell. It can be downloaded here.